


No Baseball Team

by tuppenny



Series: Growing Together [9]
Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Cats, F/M, Fluff, More Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 16:38:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14116503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuppenny/pseuds/tuppenny
Summary: In which Jack and Katherine try to get their baby to take a nap.





	No Baseball Team

**Author's Note:**

  * For [passionslipsaway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/passionslipsaway/gifts).



> Takes place five months after the last chapter of my [Bundle of Joy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13373643/chapters/30627615) fic.
> 
> The prompt pieces I was given to work with were:  
> Fluff  
> Spooning  
> Butts  
> Canon

**November 1909**

“She won’t go down, Jack,” Katherine wailed, the intensity of her distress nearly equal to that of their daughter’s. Jack looked up from his drafting table over to the doorway, where Katherine was standing barefoot, holding Eleanor tightly to her chest, the baby’s head propped on her shoulder. “I know you have a deadline, I _know_ , but could you…” Katherine sobbed as Ellie screamed again, and then she said, “No, no, I’m so sorry, I’ll go try again, I…” Katherine turned to leave, but Jack hopped off of his stool and trotted after her, stopping her with a gentle hand on her free shoulder.

“You two come first, macushla,” he said. “I’ll finish that drawing later.” He motioned for her to hand over the squalling baby, who didn’t quiet in the least when passed over to Jack. He grabbed a few blankets off the sofa, nodded to Katherine to help him spread them out over the rug, and then, still carrying the screaming Ellie, he went to retrieve several pillows from the bedroom. “Storytime,” he said decisively, returning with pillows and a board book.

“It’s naptime, not storytime,” Katherine said, still crying. “She needs to sleep, Jack! She needs to sleep— _I_ need to sleep, why won’t she _sleep_?” 

“Shh, love,” Jack said, wrapping his free arm around her and guiding her over to the soft blankets spread out over the floor. “Just lie down, okay?”

Katherine sank onto the floor, rubbing the dark circles under her eyes. “I’m so tired, I’m so tired…”

“I know, darlin’, I know. Lie down.”

“But Ellie isn’t—” 

“Katherine,” he said sternly. “Just lemme try this, an’ if it don’t work, then you go take a nap in our bed an’ Ellie an’ I will go f’r a walk. Okay?”

“Okay,” she said wretchedly, stretching herself onto the quilt and feeling the tears slide sideways from her eyes.

Jack lay down, too, fitting himself next to her and flipping the screaming Eleanor on his chest so that she was staring up at the ceiling. “Shh, Ellie Girl,” he said, his voice soothing. He held her in place with one hand and used the other to find the first page of the board book, which he then positioned so all three of them could see it. “Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon.”

Ellie screamed in rage, and Katherine echoed her, curling into Jack and crying into his shoulder. “Hoo boy,” Jack said under his breath, and then he returned to his storybook voice. “Look, astoreen, there’s the cat, see? What sound does a cat make, Bunny?” He stroked Ellie’s thatch of strawberry-blonde hair and waited for a second. “Meowwww,” he said, doing a more than passable imitation of the alley cats that yowled outside the apartment at all hours of the day and night. 

Ellie quieted for a second and blinked, turning her head this way and that to find the source of the cat noise. “Meoooooow,” Jack said again, stroking her hair and hoping the repeated noise would distract her from crying. “That’s what a cat says, Bunny, meeeeow, that’s right. And there’s the cat in the book, see? And—oof!” He grunted as something leapt onto his stomach. 

“Ah, right on schedule. An’ look, Ellie Baby, there’s our cat, there’s our Mitzi!” Ellie stared intently past her toes to look at the fluffy black cat perched on Jack’s stomach. “Mitzi’s a cat, Ellie, just like the cat in the book. An’ what does Mitzi say, baby? What does a cat say? Meowwww, that’s right, meowwww.”

Mitzi meowed back, and Ellie jerked her limbs in response. “You like Mitzi, don’t you, baby. That’s right, Mitzi’s a cat, just like the cat in the book! An’ what’s a cat say, Ellie Girl? Meowwww, meoooow.” Ellie kicked against Jack’s chest and grunted, trying to grab Mitzi. Mitzi meowed again and picked her way across Jack and onto Katherine, draping herself over Katherine’s hip and blinking slowly at Ellie.

“Look, Ellie, Mommy an’ Mitzi are takin’ a nap,” Jack said, still brushing his hand gently across Ellie’s head. “Ya think we c’n take a nap, too, now? Hmm? Maybe for once you c’n let us all get some shuteye in this house, Ellie Girl?” 

Eleanor yawned and fidgeted, rolling onto her side to try and make a better grab for Mitzi.

“No, astoreen, no. Mitzi’s sleepin’ on Mommy, an’ you’s sleepin’ on me. Okay?” He laid the book down and began to sing the nursery rhyme without the pictures, pitching it low in hopes of quieting Ellie without waking Katherine, who had fallen asleep almost as soon as she’d closed her eyes. “…the little dog laughed to see such sport…” He sang the rhyme over and over, listening to his voice grow hoarse while his daughter wiggled and kicked and continued to reach for the cat. Eventually, though, her motions slowed and stilled, until finally the only sound in the room was the quiet breathing of Jack’s wife and daughter and the steady purring of his cat.  “Thank heavens,” he rasped, and let his own eyes fall shut.

 

*

 

He woke up to Katherine’s warm breath on his neck, her arms folded and sandwiched against his back, her body slotted up snugly against his. “Mmm,” he said, enjoying the silence and warmth and the press of his wife lying beside him. He let his eyes fall closed and breathed in deeply, overwhelmed with love for his dazzlingly wonderful wife, the unfathomable gift of his daughter, the safety of having a home and a family and a full stomach. Everything was right in his world. Everything was more beautiful than he’d known it could be. 

Katherine mumbled in her sleep and then sat bolt upright. “Ellie!” She yelped, looking around the room and calming down as she realized where they were. “Oh. Oh, it was just a dream.” She scrubbed a hand across her face and bent to kiss Jack on the cheek. “Did you fall asleep, too?” 

“Mhmm,” he said, rolling around to hug her and nuzzle his head into her chest, groaning slightly as he registered the ache in his pelvis from having slept on the floor.

“I needed that,” she said softly, kissing his mussed hair. “I almost feel human again.”

He laughed and reached a hand over to pinch her butt. “Ya feel pretty human ta me.”

She slapped his arm lightly. “Knock it off, pretty-boy. I am _not_ ready for child number two just yet.”

Jack’s jaw dropped. “You want a child number two?”

She blushed and looked shy. “Yes. Do you?”

“Yes,” he breathed, “Heavens above, Ace, I’d—I’d field a whole baseball team with you if you’d let me.”

She laughed. “Well, let’s not get carried away. We’re having enough trouble with just the one; probably best to pace ourselves.” He beamed at her, but she wasn’t looking at him anymore; she’d pushed herself up into a sitting position and was now leaning over to scan the blanket behind him. “Speaking of which,” she said slowly, “Where _is_ our one?” 

Jack’s eyes widened. “Uh oh.” They stared at each other in horror and then scrambled to their feet, Katherine running off to the left side of the apartment, Jack taking the right. Now that Eleanor was old enough to crawl, they’d started keeping most of the apartment doors closed so that she couldn’t get very far, but they’d been so tired that they’d both forgotten to close the living room door before falling asleep. “Ellie!” Jack yelled, his heart racing as he scanned the empty hallway and half-fell into the kitchen. “ _El_ —oh.” He breathed a huge sigh of relief as he spotted his eight-month-old safe and sound, sitting and… He burst into laughter. “Katherine,” he called, poking his head around the doorframe so his voice carried down the hall. “Found her! She’s fine. But ya better c’mere—you gotta see this.” 

Katherine ran down the hall, practically in tears again, “Oh, thank goodness, thank _goodness_ , I was so—” She pulled up short at the sight of Eleanor, who was smiling and babbling and sitting quite happily in the corner of the kitchen, one hand firmly clenched in Mitzi’s fur, the other hand full of Mitzi’s cat food. Katherine watched wordlessly as Ellie released the handful of food onto the floor in front of Mitzi, then grabbed another fistful from the nearly-empty bowl and stuffed it messily into her own mouth. “Ohhhhh,” Katherine moaned, covering her face in her hands and burying her head in Jack’s shoulder. “No baseball team, no baseball team!”

Jack laughed, hugged her tightly, and rubbed Katherine’s back. “Just one is good for now,” he said, shaking his head as his daughter and his cat made satisfied crunching noises.

“Oh, gosh,” Katherine said, lowering her hands and watching Ellie and Mitzi munch away. “She is a full-time job, this one.”

“That she is,” Jack said, still chuckling. 

Katherine looked up at him and sighed ruefully. “Well, you did say the cat would be good training for a kid,” she said, a trace of humor in her voice. “Although I doubt this is what you meant.”

He snickered. “It wasn’t, but… Well, she’s happy.” 

“She is, isn’t she,” Katherine said, beginning to giggle. “Oh my goodness, Jack, our daughter is eating _cat_ food. And _look_ at her,” she said, as Ellie dumped another handful of cat food onto the floor. “She’s even _sharing_.”

“Sharing is a big d’velopmental milestone, ain’t it?” Jack mused, unable to turn his eyes away from Ellie.

“It is,” Katherine said. “What a smart girl we have.” 

“Just like her mama,” Jack said, pressing a kiss to her hair. Katherine laughed again, and although Jack could hear that her laughter was about to tip over into tears, he knew that was due to exhaustion and emotion rather than anything he needed to worry about.

“Oh! _Jack_ ,” she said sharply, pulling back to stare at him, wide-eyed. “You _cannot_ tell Charlie and Rosie about this. You _can’t_.” He stared at her, confused. “ _Promise_ me, Jack! Promise!” She gripped his shoulders tightly and shook him a little. “There is no way Daniel has ever eaten cat food—you _can’t_ tell them!”

“Well, they don’t have a cat, Ace,” he pointed out, but he hunched his shoulders and held his hands up in surrender when she just glared at him. “Okay, okay. I won’t tell ‘em. I promise.”

“Good,” she said, relaxing and settling back into their embrace. They stood in silence for a minute, listening to the noise of their two tiny creatures snacking contentedly. “Do you think we should stop her?” Katherine said after a while.

“Nah,” Jack said. “She’s happy, an’ it ain’t gonna kill her. Best enjoy the happy baby while we can.”

“I agree,” said Katherine, shaking her head and sighing. “Boy, do we have our hands full.” 

“Stands to reason,” Jack said wryly. “We weren’t neither of us the easiest kids.”

“No,” she said, giving a short laugh and rubbing her forehead tiredly. “But,” she added, looking up and kissing his nose, “I wouldn’t change her for the world.” 

“Me, either,” Jack said, and smiled.

 

**Author's Note:**

> ‘Boy’ as an interjection dates to 1892


End file.
